by Laura Munson | Dec 14, 2023 | Musings
Featured in Huffington Post and Thrive Global
No one really knows what to say to someone when their loved one dies. You can say, “You’re in my thoughts and prayers,” and maybe that’s true. Maybe you actually know what to think or pray on that person’s behalf. Personally, I’m never sure.
You can tell them that you’ll be there for them—that you’re their middle-of-the-night-phone-call friend, and promise to sleep with the phone near your bed. You can write them a With Sympathy card and let Hallmark say something in lofty cursive and sign your name with love. Or make a digital card with organ music to have a more flashy effect. You can go to the funeral and wake and talk about all the good memories of their loved one, memorialize them with a slide show, give a toast, even ease the pain with some good jokes.
You can bring them soup. Bone soup, if you’ve been there. If you know how hard it is to eat when you are in emotional triage. It gets physical fast. And every bite needs to hold health.
You can use social media to show support, post by post. But do you “Like” an announcement of death? Do you “Share” it? Do you “Comment?” It’s all a way of observing your friend’s loss. But in the same place you share about what you ate for breakfast?
You can give them books: A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, in which the minister rages against the loss of his beloved wife, himself, his God, and Who Dies, by Stephen Levine, especially Chapter 8, where he goes deeply into Grief as an ultimate vehicle of liberation, saying, “We are dropped into the very pit of despair and longing…an initiation often encountered along the fierce journey toward freedom, spoken of in the biographies of many saints and sages.” But most people are not open to that journey in the first place, and certainly not when their hearts are shattered into splintered shards.
The truth is, and it hurts in the worst way…that ultimately, the mourner will be alone in their grief, and who wants to say that? Who wants to bear the news that soon…people will stop Thinking, and Praying, and Liking, and Sharing, and Commenting, and bringing soup, and sending cards and emails and books. Even the phone calls and texts will fall away. The unspoken reality is: People go back to their lives and you are alone. You are in a club that you never wanted to be in. And that’s when you watch Renee Fleming singing “Walk On” over and over on youtube as loud as you can. And eventually…you do. You absorb the grief. And you start to see the “golden sky” she’s singing about. But you never get over your loss. Never.
There is the opportunity, however, to use it. If you’re in the club, you might as well be a steady and gracious club member. I’m in the club. And recently, one of my dear friend’s beloved husband dropped dead out of nowhere. She’d lost her grandparents in their old age. No one else. She was bereft. She asked me to write her a list of things that would help her, based on a phone call we’d shared. Her mind was in a triage fog, my words were helpful to her, and she wanted to remember them.
Here is what I wrote. I offer it to you, if you are a new member of this club. You are not alone. And I offer it to you if you are one of those people wondering what to Think, Pray, Say…do:
Hello, beautiful. I am thinking of you non-stop. Thank you for calling on me to be in your circle at this impossible time. I am not afraid of this, so I’m glad you called me in. I will be there for you. The books you asked for should be there by the end of the week. I will write some of the points I made on the phone here, since you asked for them. If my words on the phone were helpful, it’s only because you are open to them. I truly hope they help. Here is what has helped me and some of the people I know who have been through deep loss:
- First of all: Breathe. I mean it. That’s your most important tool to stay in the present, out of fear, and to sustain yourself. You will find yourself holding your breath. Try to stay aware of your breath no matter what and keep breathing…in…out…in…out. Deeply if you can. Little sips when deep is too hard.
- Lean into Love. Wherever you can find it. In your God. In friends and family. In yourself. Let it hold you for now. Call on friends and family to give you what you need. You cannot offend anyone right now. Let us know what you need and tell us how to give it to you. “Bring me dinner, please. Come sit with me. Read to me. Sing to me. Rub my back. Draw me a bath…”
- That said, be careful who you bring into your circle. Stay away from people who say things like, “He’s in a better place,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” They’re trying to help, and maybe those things are true, but right now you need people who are not afraid to hold the space for your pain. You need to find the people who feel easy and safe and not necessarily wise. Keep your circle small for now. It might be that you call on people very different from the ones you habitually have in your life.
- Make sure to eat. Even if you want to throw up. Please, eat. And drink a lot of water. You don’t want to block your natural energy flow. Your body actually knows how to handle this immense pain.
- Lie in bed with your feet up.
- Take a walk if you can, every day. Even if it’s short. Just get outside.
- Take Epsom Salt baths. Lavender oil helps. Keep some in your purse, put a few drops on your palm, rub your hands together, then cup your hands to your nose and breathe deeply when you need grounding.
- Write. If you can. Just a little bit. If you have it in you, at some point sooner than later, it’s incredibly useful to write down your vision of what was “supposed to be.” I heard those words come from your deepest place of sacred rage and I believe that to write that story, as fully fleshed out as possible, would be an important step in one day sending off that “supposed to be” into the sea of surrender. So that you don’t have to hold it anymore and you can live into your future. Letting the supposed-to-be go doesn’t mean that you do it injustice or that it no longer exists in dreams and heart. But it’s important not to have it become armor of some sort. It’s not time now to surrender it. But I do believe that it would be helpful just to write it out with great details as a way to honor it. And one day…yes, to let it go. Writing is the most transformational and therapeutic tool I know and I think it should be up there with diet and exercise in the realm of wellness. Keep a journal by your bed. It helps.
- When the terrifying, claustrophobic, impossible thoughts come, do not let them multiply. Literally put up a wall that keeps them on the other side. They are not your friend. There is no making sense of this loss. Unless your thoughts are loving and forgiving and helpful, banish them. If you have to shout “NO!” then do it. What you let into your mind should feel and act like the very best friends and family who would never let you entertain fear, but only shower you with love. Love yourself. There is no thinking your way through this. This is a time to really find what it is to just…be. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. In out in out.
- There is no check list right now. There is nowhere to get. There is no goal other than to fully live in the present moment. You can’t skip steps with triage, grief, or healing. Grief attacks at will, it seems. Be gentle with yourself if you feel graceless around it. You have to feel it to shed it.
- Go slowly. Be careful. The only real wisdom I have gleaned from Grief is this: Grief is one of our greatest teachers because it doesn’t allow for hiding places. When we open to our sorrow, we find truth. Your tears then, are truth. Honor them.
That’s enough for now. The main thing is to be gentle with yourself. I love you so. And the love you two shared will never ever go away. He is Love now and he is all around you and in you. If you can’t feel him, feel Love and you will be feeling him.
Hope that helps. You can do this. I am here for you. I promise. If only just to listen to your tears and let you know you are not alone.
Love,
Laura
Love note: Many of the people who come to my Haven Writing Retreats are processing some sort of loss by using the written word. If you want to own this potent tool, consider coming on a retreat with me in Montana in 2024. You do not have to be a writer to come. Just a seeker. Email: info@lauramunson.com to set up an intro call.
Haven Writing Retreats 2024
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by Laura Munson | Aug 3, 2023 | Musings, Uncategorized
***Still a few rare spots left on my October 24-27 Haven Writing Retreat! To book an intro call, go here.
As seen on Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper
Montanans like to say, “You won’t know that a mountain lion’s stalking you until you feel its teeth on the back of your neck.”
For years, I felt that stalking— those teeth. The thing is: I rarely felt that way in the woods. Instead, I felt that way in the grocery store, in my office, doing the laundry, lying in bed at 4 a.m. with my eyes wide open. When the stress of life spiked, I could feel this way for weeks at a time. And I knew that it had to stop.
If you are someone who works very hard, whether in a profession or passion or role of any sort, it’s likely that you know what I mean. And it’s likely that you are keeping it all inside. Smiles on the outside buying broccoli, but duking it out in your mind all-the-while. And on top of that: you know better. That’s the worst part: knowing better.
For years, each morning before I got out of bed— before the fangs threatened to set in my neck— I tried to create a calm and steady clean slate for the day. I had (and still have) different methods: prayer, meditation, breathing, reading poems, writing in my journal. These modalities would start to catch, and I’d feel that liminal lifting into a free, calm place that I hoped I could sustain all day. I figured the more I practiced, the more I’d be free of those seemingly ever-present fangs, and live in serenity and balance. It felt like a matter of life or death.
But all too often, sometimes before I’d even finished brushing my teeth, my ears would be ringing, my brain buzzing, my stomach churning. I’d catch myself holding my breath. My shoulders up in my jawline. My teeth clenched. And again, what made it even worse: I knew better. This quieting of the mind and body seemed insurmountable, no matter how hard I tried. And moreover, I couldn’t keep lying to myself about how severely this pressure (that I put on myself, by the way), ran my life.
There’s nothing like a warning from a dear and dying friend who, two weeks before she died, told me: “You feed that mangy wolf. You don’t have to. I know you and you’ll still create what you need to create. But you can do it differently.”
Her memorial service is what began my quest to find that “differently.” There was a lot of talk about the mangy wolf (which is what she called her cancer). And me with my stalking mangy mountain lion. I walked out into the world after that gathering, and with tears in my eyes, I said, “I will not feed you. Not for one more second. I am not going to compartmentalize my freedom any longer.”
So, I started asking the wise, passionate (and yes, busy) women in my life how they managed their wise, passionate, busy lives…
I realized that I’d been spending too much time talking with the ones who were running from the fangs, like me. Instead, I chose the ones with the true smiles buying broccoli— the ones who say they’re fine and mean it.
I started with a friend who is one of the best balancers of stress I know, as well as the busiest. I ranted: “I love my job. I love teaching and leading writing retreats. I love everything about helping people find their voice and their flow and their ease, using the written word. But every single day I look at my Google calendar and I feel like I need to fasten my seatbelt. There’s too much on it and I’m letting it run my life.”
She paused, giving me time to digest my words. “You can change that if you really want to. The question is: do you really want to? Or is being crazy-busy part of your identity? Have you normalized this behavior because it somehow serves you? That’s the question.”
The heavens opened. “It is not serving me.”
It all started unraveling then, as epiphanies tend to do.
What if I stopped running in this race against myself? Would the sky fall? Likely not. I’d likely still get to my destination, just not out of breath, on fumes, in adrenal blowout, feeling like I’m about to be attacked.
Then my friend said, “I’ve heard you speak about your relationship with your muse. That your writing is your free zone and the way you breathe. Once you’re in the act, there’s no inner critic. The stress is gone. And you’re like a child at play in the field of wonder.”
“That’s the truth,” I replied. “The inner critic— she’s the greatest stress spinner of all. But not while I’m writing. I don’t let her anywhere near that. Same with the retreats and all the teaching I do. Sacrosanct, wonderous, ground.”
My friend’s eyes widened and her smile spread. “So why not treat your whole life the same way? Why not just put down that sword you’re carrying around in all your roles. You’ve proven yourself. You can let yourself breathe now. You can work just as hard, and get just as much out of it, but with self-kindness. Curiosity. Wonder. Calm. Balance. Even freedom.”
Sounded possible. But honestly…improbable. Then I remembered that years ago, when I started leading writing retreats, I asked a wise, veteran, retreat leader friend for some advice. I knew I would be fine in the usual departments: leadership, inspiration, craft-instruction, editing, positive energy, and group dynamics. My concern stemmed from a fear that I wouldn’t know how to keep myself from taking on each individual’s emotions and problems. People who want to write are usually working through high-stakes emotions and high-stakes problems.
She said, “Give half of what you want to give, and it will be more than enough.” It took me a while before I really put her wisdom to work. Once I did, it was metamorphic.
So I made a date with her. “I know how to have good boundaries at my retreats. But not in my relationship with the stressors in my life.”
“Try this.” She put her palms out flat, one to the sky, and the other to the ground, and she stretched her arms as far as they would go in each direction. Then she did the same thing to both sides of herself.
“Ah,” I said. “Protection.”
She smiled. “It’s more than that. Protection implies that there’s something to protect yourself from. Think of it like you’re creating space for yourself that’s only yours. Claimed space. At work. At play. Everywhere you go.”
Huh. Space for myself.
I tried her technique but couldn’t quite fully pull it off. The mangy mountain lion still found a way to break through.
I am a word wanderer. Maybe it was a word that I needed, as the anonymous 14th century Christian mystic prescribed in The Cloud of Unknowing.
“Take a little word of just one syllable to help you focus your attention. The shorter the word the better…Choose a word like ‘God’ or ‘love’ or any other word of one syllable that appeals to you and impress it indelibly on your heart so that it is always there…”
I’d read that book decades ago, written about it, used it as a practice, and lost it along the way. One word. One word that would become a hymn that I could never not hear. A word that played itself inside me, ringing through the rafters of my ribs and sending sound ripples throughout my whole body and whole being.
I thought of my friend’s space-creating practice, and I brought in the word space. Space around me. Space that no one could infiltrate. Space that was pressure-less. Stressless.
Each morning I spent time before I opened my eyes, repeating the word space in my mind, and imagining this free space around me. Not my physical being. My unseen one. My soul. It worked, sort of. But space is such a, well, spacious, massive, unending creature. So, I welcomed other words…and then one day, my Word came to me: room.
Room felt better. A place I could occupy. Room in the way of space, but also a room around me that was all mine. No one was allowed in— like my childhood treehouse. I realized that this is exactly how I feel about my writing, my retreats, and everything I teach…where no mangy mountain lion dares to enter.
Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” made new and utter sense to me. A room can be a physical place, and I believe that everyone needs a sacred, impenetrable space for themselves, no matter what they do. Even if it’s very small. But suddenly I looked at a room as an inner holding— one that I could fill with the essence of myself.
Because the essence of myself is not running scared, waiting for life to pounce. The essence of myself is in co-creation with something hungry for something entirely pure, joyful, and free. I think of that Word— room— and say it in my mind, and I am instantly centered in this calm, gentle, playful, wonderous, safe inner-worldly (and inner-wordly) place. May you find your Word, too.
Still a few rare spots left on my October 25-29 Haven Writing Retreat! For more info go here.
To book an introductory call, talk about your writing dreams, and how Haven could be a match for you, email me!
You do not have to be a writer to receive all that Haven is. Just a seeker. A word-wanderer. Come finally find your voice, set your writing on fire, and get the teaching, mentorship, and community you deserve! All in the glory of The Dancing Spirit Ranch in stunning Flathead Valley, Montana.
TESTIMONIALS:
If you have always wanted to share your ideas, thoughts, stories through writing or become a better writing coach/teacher Laura Munson’s Haven Writing Retreats are for you. I can honestly say that in all my years as an educator, and as a learner, I have never had such a loving, giving, and deeply moving learning experience as I did under Laura’s expert instruction. Being a writer is such a complex task, and Laura breaks things down so expertly, creates safe spaces, and ensures that you are given the kind of feedback that lifts you and makes you a much better wordsmith than when you first entered her magical place in the Montana mountains. I highly recommend this experience for anyone, no matter where you are in your writing path. What an experience that I will never forget. Thank you, Laura and your Haven!
—Misty from Maine (Educator, School Principal, Director of Curriculum, Coach for Educators, Writer)
Attending Laura Munson’s Haven Writing Retreat fulfilled a bucket list item for me. The Haven experience gave me a new level of validation and confidence I’ve been needing over the last several years. The connection I was able to make with my Haven group was both healing, enlightening, and inspiring. We wrote and read and ate and laughed and cried together. For the first time in my writing life, at Haven, I heard my own voice clear and distinct because I also heard theirs. I understood how and why the way I choose to communicate is not only unique but also important. Laura’s program and approach also helped me make significant progress in solidifying my next writing project. I have a million ideas daily, which is often overwhelming. Attending Haven set me firmly on my current path; now I’m going forward. I highly recommend Haven not only to writers, but also to anyone who needs to take a true beat, to re-connect with who they are, and where they are going.
—Penelope from PA (Author, Professional Speaker)
My experience at Laura Munson’s Haven Writing Retreat was indeed life changing.
I signed up at a point in my life when I wasn’t quite sure if I was a writer, but I knew I loved it and decided to take a leap of faith. I am so incredibly glad I did! I left the retreat knowing I am indeed a writer and with a newfound commitment to tell my story. Laura is a fearless leader, a visionary, and a brilliant teacher. Each day was intensely focused and I found myself having an “aha” moment nearly every hour as, with her guidance, I figured out who I am as a writer and how best to express my story. The sense of community was immediate, and the opportunity to sit in a room of supportive people was a first for me, as I’m sure it is for many. Laura leads critiques with a fearless and positive tone, carefully considering each person’s individual needs.
I am so incredibly grateful for the beautiful Montana location and for Laura’s grace and open hearted joy in lovingly leading a group of writers to the next page in their journey. No matter where you are as writer, at the very beginning, or published multiple times,
the Haven Writing Retreat will expand your soul and stay in your heart forever.
—Lisbeth from Malibu, California
(Composer, singer, songwriter….and writer!)
Whoever declared “Haven is an MFA in five days!” was bang on. This surprising retreat delivers a wealth of publishing information, writing sessions that inspire, sage guidance on narrative structure, gentle while exacting feedback, and, to boot, ongoing writerly support. The setting is a stunning expanse of land, cared for in a sacred way. And all led by Laura Munson, twice over bestselling author, with her fierce command of how to teach writing (by every eclectic means thinkable). What fun we had! And how hard we worked!
If you want to open up your future, I urge you to jump in (and there’s often financial wizardry for those of us penniless, through the Haven Foundation).After five days retreating, a little solo steeping time is suggested before reentering family and community. But when you emerge, words will come with you—words and words and words!
—Kathleen Meyer, author of How to Shit in the Woods, Victor, MT
by Laura Munson | Nov 9, 2022 | Uncategorized
You know that thing you want so badly but you’ve told yourself you just can’t have? For decades? That thing which you know would change your health, your happiness, your creativity, your general outlook on life, your hope in yourself and in your future? That thing?
I’m not talking about something that you think would be good for someone else. Although I’m sure you would be very good at helping that someone else say yes to that good thing that you’re so crystal-clear-sure would change everything for them. That thing they’ve been hinting at but have not yet fully claimed. I’m sure you’d have a whole Atticus Finch persuasive argument about why their lives might even depend on them saying yes to it. I’m sure that you’d be willing to take billable hours out of your workday to persuade them to say yes.
And you’d be smart about it. You’d wait until their birthday. When they’d have to say yes. You’d take them to their favorite restaurant. You’d order them their favorite thing on earth that they’d never order on their own: oysters on the half shell and a glass of prosecco. You’d wait until the first one slid down their throat, followed by a savored sip of bubbly, and then in the blush of their first, sated sigh— something that you haven’t heard from them in months…then and only then…you’d look at them lovingly, but direly, and say:
“It’s time. You know you have to do this big, beautiful thing for yourself. You’ve been hinting at it forever. If I’m getting sick of it, you must really be sick of it. What would happen if you said yes on this next trip around the sun? Would the sky fall? I’m here to promise you: the sky isn’t going to fall. Not because you finally gave yourself permission to say yes to this thing that you want so deeply but can’t even form full sentences about. Just…groans.”
And their faces would flicker with the possibility of finally granting themselves this thing they’ve wanted for years. They’d look like a child for that flicker of a moment. You’d know what their face looked like when they found a penny and put it into a gumball machine and out came a glistening pink orb. So much possibility!
But then their faces would fade into old stories that they have no idea how to rewrite. And they’d utter any number of renditions of the following:
We don’t spend money on ourselves in our family.
It’s selfish.
We suffer and silently feel proud of living in lack. With smiles on our faces, and a lot of ‘I’m fine, how are you?’
We’ve been that way for generations.
Who am I to break the chain just because of something that I want?
So badly. That I can taste it.
Then they’d cross their arms over their chest and look in every direction but into your eyes, and they’d say, “You really shouldn’t have ordered those oysters. It’s so decadent. I should get back to work. You can have them. I know how much you love oysters.” Quick peck on the cheek and even quicker exit.
Now what are you going to do? Find someone else to push, in the way of dreams? Because here’s what you don’t want to think about in any way shape or form: what would happen if you stopped putting all your energy into other people’s “problems” and held the mirror up to yourself? What do you want that you’re not giving yourself? What are your dreams? I bet you suddenly want to run out the door because this is uncharted territory, or at least it has been for a long time now. Since post-divorce reinvention, the fledge of two kids, and a global pandemic…you’ve been in survival mode. Saving mode. Hoarding mode, even. The only thing is: you’re the only one who believes that you need to be in survival mode anymore. Everyone else wants to take you for lunch on your birthday, order you oysters and prosecco, and implore you to thrive again.
Damn.
All of this…recently happened to me, only in its own unique way. It was a bitter but bright reminder of the world of lack I’d let script my life. And it led to a yes I hadn’t known was so pressing. A dream I didn’t know I’d stopped dreaming. That yes stopped years of nos in their lack-living tracks…and welcomed a future of abundance. It was time. And as with many of these pivotal moments, it happened thanks to a dear friend.
A bit of backstory to help you say your own yes:
For twelve years I’ve been helping people say yes to their creative self-expression through the most powerful tool I know: the written word. I haven’t taken them out for lunch on their birthday and ordered them oysters. I haven’t pushed or prodded about their personal life. I’m in no way a therapist and I don’t pretend to be one. But I’ve spent at least an hour with thousands of people on the phone to see if they’re a match for my Haven Writing Retreats and vice the verse. I’ve listened to their writing dreams and what’s in the way of those dreams. Some beginners. Some published. And everything in-between.
What I’m listening for most of all is a longing in their voices. I know that my writing programs will feed that longing. And I can speak to it so confidently because it’s not about me. It’s about the program. I built the program because I’ve walked the walk as a writer, editor, teacher, retreat-leader, and author’s advocate in different iterations, for decades, but mostly for the last ten years and over a thousand clients from all over the world. And it’s the program which holds my clients. I hold the program. The people who staff the Dancing Spirit Ranch retreat center hold me. It’s a very healthy symbiosis. But that doesn’t mean that I know how to be an advocate for my own dreams. Sure, I can give myself permission to take a trip to explore new parts of the world. But what about my oldest adult dream, right in my own backyard? A room of my own. A writing studio. My personal haven. An almost thirty-year old dream that I’d blocked out, and even given away.
Here is the moment when it all changed:
It was after the seventh of my 2021 Haven Writing Retreats last fall. I’d said goodbye to my last group of eight brave souls, with that full heart, yet pit in my stomach. I’m not good at goodbyes, especially after Haven. Haven changes lives, and all of it changes mine. It’s a lot to process and it requires some time to honor it before I get in my truck and drive back to my regular life. Usually I sit at the edge of the lake and look into the peaks of Glacier National Park, thinking about each of the attendees, their breakthroughs, their voices, their stories, sending them all love as they travel home. This time, I chose to sit by the fire. Hearth felt necessary, especially at the end of the retreat season. One of the ranch staffers joined me, relaxing around the fire, reflecting on the magic of it all.
She said, “What are you going to do for you now, Laura? What’s your writing dream?”
“My writing dream? Uh…”
She added, “You were talking at the end of last season about finally finishing off the space over your garage for your writing studio. Did you end up doing it?”
It was an innocent question, but I took it as a naked assessment of my personal BS. These people are the most present humans I have ever met. They are made of intuition. Having the mirror turned on me is not my comfort zone. I wanted to send back my proverbial oysters. But they were so lovingly given.
Instead, I fell into an old personal “hymn” of sorts: “Oh, I’m a flexible writer. I can write wherever. The studio would cost too much. Plus it’s home to any number of pack rats. I wouldn’t want to send them out into the world with their little hobo sticks. I’m fine writing…wherever.” The words tumbled out, rote, but in my mind, I smelled a lot more than pack rats. And I’m pretty sure she did too.
I knew this “wherever” well— I’d designated it as my writing “space” for years. I told myself that this liminal creative space was a moveable feast. I’d memorized a whole mantra around this “wherever”: create it and the sacred will follow. But sitting there with such a pure human, so post-retreat open, I thought: How about it, Virginia Woolf? How about that room of one’s own? Did I have some sort of strange relationship with lack, in this regard? I’d prided myself on the fact that I’d written in eaves under staircases, in closets, in cock-roach-infested rentals, guest bedrooms, in my car between baseball and soccer games, in my bed (too often), at my kitchen table, in cafes, hotels, airplanes…countless forms of wherever for years. Wherever was part of my writer’s identity. But why?
So I looked to this brilliant being for answers to a question I’d forgotten how to ask. “Can you remind me what I said about the studio space last year? I’ve totally blocked that dream out of my mind for some reason.”
Her eyes danced at the opportunity to recall such a lush dream.
“You said that you needed a space that’s just yours. That’s new to you. That doesn’t hold any old energy or memories. A place that hasn’t belonged to anyone else. A place where you can stretch out and do yoga and listen to whatever kind of music you want as loudly as you want. A place where you can move around instead of being so strapped to your computer. Dance. Sing. Play your guitar when no one’s listening. Make your tea on a new stove with a new kettle. A new clean slate.” She was giving Atticus a run for his money. And maybe it was because I was so retreat-open and raw that I listened. Really listened. The teacher needs to be a student.
“I said all that?”
She offered a wide-eyed, loving blink. “Yeah.”
This woman knows me in a way that only a very few do. I can’t pretend that my life is working any better than it actually is around her. She sees through veils and lives in wisdom. So I fought every bit of discomfort. My arms wanted to cross themselves over my chest. My feet wanted to walk me out of the room. My mind wanted to make up excuses for why I needed to get back home.
But this person saw my fear and stayed with it. “Why don’t you do it? I bet the guys might have some time this winter.”
By “guys” she meant the people who built the glorious ranch where I hold my retreats. Every inch of this place is put together with such love, care, intention, craft. I’ve never found a place, in fact I can’t imagine a place, that is so congruent with how I lead all things Haven. I wouldn’t have it any other way and either would they.
She smiled in that knowing way of hers. Only not attached. Just a conduit of truth. And maybe it was because of her knowing smile that something shifted in me. Something heavy and old and even mean.
I thanked her for all of her loving care of my retreaters, and of me, and when I went outside, lo…there were the “guys.” It was odd to see them there in that moment. They’re rarely around during a retreat. They know it’s just our group vibe and they respect it.
“Hey, guys. I’m just wondering…” My heart quickened in that before-and after way. When a fog lifts and you finally give yourself permission to say yes to a big dream. “Any chance you guys have the time, or interest, to fix up over my garage? Make a writing space for me? Nothing too fancy. But special. Sacred. You know. I know you know. Just look at this place! It would be such an honor to have your craftsmanship on my new writing space.” And then the idea branched and leafed as do all essential ideas if you allow them to give themselves to you. “And also…a writer in residence space. For alums of my different Haven writing programs.”
I was sure they’d smile kindly, and say that they were full to the brim with jobs, as all the trades people are in the valley these days. Instead, they looked at each other and said, “We might be able to swing it. Why don’t we stop by and check it out.”
That’s when it got real. When you finally put words and intention to something…I’ve found that things start happening.
It’s been a year since that conversation. Since then, the “guys” have created the most beautiful version of that space that I could ever imagine. It’s like a cathedral. Or an overturned boat. Truly sacred space. We felt our way through all of it— by walls, by floors, by tiles, by cabinets, by counters, by closets, by bathroom, banister, stairway, doorknobs, cabinet pulls, fixtures, the way light hits the space and how to honor it. And so much more. They hung art for me. They suggested where to buy locally and conscientiously. I knew it was a perfect match when one of them said, upon first glance, the place still full of pack rat nests and old, great grand somebody’s great grand broken chairs: “I like the way it feels in here.”
They could feel and see it when I still couldn’t. However are we to dream our futures alive when we are still bowing at the altar of the past?
And I realized that this space over my garage had become a vestibule for holding on to the past. Nobody remembered the original plan— the floorplan my four-year old and I had drawn with crayons on butcher block paper all those years ago. Nobody remembered, not anyone who was living anyway, that this was going to be “Mama’s writing room.” Instead, life happened, and the space become the graveyard for the bones of old dreams, broken by divorce, the dollhouse my parents had built for my siblings and me and that I’d re-decorated after a brutal late term miscarriage, a doll house they’d once loved but which had eventually lost its luster. A holding tank for old stories told by generations in the land of lack. Poverty spirit. We don’t give ourselves such grandiose and indulgent gifts. We do without. You can write ‘wherever.’ ‘Wherever’ is where you belong.
And standing there with these illuminated humans…it became clear: was this lack-land all a lie I’d memorized as truth? I mean…what if I took out a loan? What if saying yes to the writing studio wasn’t as impossible as I thought?
Two weeks later, it was all systems go. I was in a daze.
My adult kids were ecstatic. They couldn’t wait to get it all, finally, out of there. Out with the old. Those weren’t their stories. They never met great grand someone. They were never told to live in lack. A writing studio for Mom? A writer in residence for her Haven Writing Retreat alums? Bring it! I didn’t realize how my burden had become theirs. I needed to let go, if just for them.
“But what about the dollhouse?” I said, bursting into I’m sure ugly, clingy, tears. They had no idea about what it represented for me historically.
“We’ll build our own kids’ dollhouses. Pack rats have been living in that thing!”
That thing? It was as good as saying, We want the future. Not the past. Please let go so that we can too. It’s time.
I agreed. But meekly.
There was nothing meek about what happened next.
My adult children brought in the twenty-year old troops. They parked their pick-up trucks under the studio window. And I waited inside the house, huddled on the couch in blankets, while they heaved and ho-ed all of it out the window, replete with Lord of the Flies tribal chanting…and hauled it away to salvage. I felt legless. Storyless. It wasn’t good or bad. It was just…new. Which was apparently what I’d wanted in the way of a writing space. Brand new. No memories. A clean slate. I wondered if I’d be able to feel good about this huge decision or if I would instead berate myself for it. Punish myself, even. The old echoes: don’t be selfish… I shook those words away. This new studio had things to teach me. I had to remain open to it, even if it was so counter-intuitive.
Every evening for a year, after the “guys” left, I went up to the studio to see the progress and digest it. Like Michelangelo who believed the sculpture was in the stone, I ran my hands over every surface, feeling it, thinking about what it might become. What it wanted to be. I walked the thirty-six steps from my house to the end of the breezeway. And I opened the door to the stairway and wondered: what will it take to claim this passage as my way into my muse instead of scattering her in the ‘wherever?’ What will she be like in this spate of space? This newness? This new story of us? How do I honor us in this new way? How do I create the right welcome? The right…permission.
And then one night, instead of walking up the stairway, I stopped short of them. It actually felt like the stairway was stopping me. Like it was reminding me of everything I knew but had forgotten in the way of sacred writing space.
In that moment, I flashed on the staircase at Shakespeare and Co. bookstore in Paris, one of my personal meccas. The first time I went to this bookstore, I was nineteen. Hemingway had gotten his mail there. Sylvia Plath had napped there with cats in her lap. The staircase was painted with words that ran from bottom stair to top. It had taken my breath away because it was the exact thing I had needed to read at that moment of my life, still mired in those childhood myths.
I wish
I could show you
When you are
Lonely or
In darkness
The astonishing
Light
Of your own
Being
That’s what I would do with my studio staircase. That’s the call that I wanted to answer in this new space every time I ascended those stairs.
I ran it by my son and daughter the next day. They want this to be sacred space for me. I trust them in this. Plus, I’d taken them to Shakespeare & Co. in Paris not long ago. I’d shown them the staircase and they’d marveled in it too.
They both said, “That’s perfect for your writing studio, Mom.”
So tomorrow, they’re coming over and we’re going to create our version of this staircase. When we get it done, I’ll share it on social media.
For now, I hope you’ll ask yourself this question and not wait until your knowing, loving friend puts your feet to the fire in her own loving way:
What would it take to finally get over your old stories in the land of lack and no…and bring yourself into an abundant yes? A loving friend who knows your truth? People who can see your vision when you can’t? Just a shift in perspective? Whatever it is for you, I wish it for you. Mostly, I hope you will allow it when it comes.
I hope that you will read these words and know the “astonishing light of your own being.”
by Laura Munson | Jul 16, 2021 | Musings
I hope you are all having a wonderful summer. Around here, people are going out in public and gathering in large groups again. Re-entry is an intense experience after the last year and a half of social distancing, sheltering in place, not being able to see people’s smiles, not being able to hug. How is it going for you? Have you been to a restaurant? A concert? A farmer’s market? In an airport? Museum? All of the above? This is an important time in our lives to mindfully process, and to me there is no better tool than writing for doing just that. I invite you to spend a half an hour (at least) writing in your journal about re-entry. See if it sparks a personal essay, poem, or short story. The pandemic isn’t over yet, but just think about where we all were last summer… I’m grateful for gatherings. Cautious. But grateful.
Here’s what I wrote in my journal this morning:
The other night I went out for dinner with two friends who were visiting and wanted to see our little Montana town. Going out for dinner is a big deal for me these days. I used to go out for dinner at least three times a week before the pandemic. In the last year and a half, like so many of us and for obvious reasons, I’ve been a hermit. Reasons that a year and a half ago weren’t really imaginable to most of us. And so I think that there is a collective shell-shock ripping across the country and across the globe, where places have opened up, as we re-enter. Some people are running out to lap up humanity with all their might. Others are tip-toeing back into it. I’m one of those people.
I’m lucky enough to live on acreage in Montana, and so when I’m not making dinner for twenty-year olds, this time of Covid has been one of deep indoor and outdoor solitude. It’s been lovely in so many ways. But I’m an extrovert. I need other people’s energy to sometimes find my own. And the other night, a dinner in town with visitors, where I could see the waiter’s facial expressions as she described the specials, where I could wave and smile at an old friend across the restaurant and go over for a hug and a how the heck have you been???…where I could enjoy my visitors and introduce them to the locals who were streaming into the restaurant like they’d just emerged from a Rip-van-winkle-esque nap…was sublime.
And then it got sort of horrifying. Or should I say, I got sort of horrifying. At least to my Covid-era, hermit self.
Post dinner: “If you really want to see our town, we should at least check out this one bar. It’s where all the locals go. And not just to drink, but to see music, play ping-pong and shuffleboard and pool, eat with their families. All the signs on the walls are failed businesses. I knew most of their owners. People come here to dream, and some dreams die, but the spirit of those dreams lives on in this town always. And this is one of its hubs. I’ve been coming here for thirty years for all different reasons. There’s a graduate plaque to my kids on the ceiling, if you can believe that one. Long story. Let’s just…pop in.” For some reason, I had tears in my eyes. I mean, it was like I was talking about my deceased grandmother. It was like I could walk in that door and see her again, even if just for one hour. See something familiar and playful and loving and the big one: local. “We won’t stay long.”
Famous last words.
But it took a minute for me to open that door. It took more than a minute. It felt like trying to get the courage to jump off the high dive, never mind dive. Or even just to find the courage to walk up the ladder. I stood outside, collecting myself. And then…I took in a deep breath and opened the door.
I was immediately overwhelmed. All of those people. So close to each other. Doing all the things that we’ve refrained from doing for over a year. And the place was throbbing with music. I guess I didn’t really understand that music is happening again. I didn’t really know that crowds like that are happening again: maskless people all in one sweaty Montana version of a mosh pit. I kept thinking: I don’t think Fauci would like this. Maybe I should leave. But then the music and the energy swooped me up into it. I’m vaccinated so I felt safe. But it was more than that. It was that I felt a powerful pull to be part of humanity. To have fun. To celebrate. To retrieve what we’ve lost. And if our country is for the most part legally wide open…well…
It just so happened that the most fun band in our town was playing on the stage. They sing all 80’s tunes with MTV videos behind them, in full Devo-esque costumes. People were going NUTS! 20 year olds who didn’t even know the words were going nuts. Seemed like every local in town was there, dancing on benches, jumping up and down on the dance floor, clapping and singing their lungs out with their hands in the air, like a long war was finally over.
Only this “war” isn’t over yet. And there are plenty of people in our country who aren’t vaccinated. But that’s another story that goes on an op-ed page. Not here. This is about what it felt like to be around unabashed joyfulness, gratitude, community, silliness, spontaneity, and a whole lot of talent: all things we’ve been deprived of for a long time, outside of the goings-on in our own living rooms. I haven’t had that much fun in…well I can’t remember.
So I danced. And danced. And sang. And sang. Until my voice was gone and I was coated in salty sweat and it was time to go home. I woke up the next morning feeling new. Young. Relieved. Happy. And I wondered: can I do this again? Is it safe? Is it stupid? Am I being responsible? Am I being brave?
None of us really knows. What we do know is that we need each other. We need music. We need to dance. We need to connect. We need our community. We need to see those smiles again. This weekend I’m going to an outdoor music festival. We’ll see how that feels. Again, I’m going slowly.
If things shut down again, I’ll do what I did last time: I will abide by the rules. But things are open. And I need to live. Can you relate? Please share your own stories here. We need to help each other re-enter, if re-entering is right for you. And the other night…it was right for me.
by Laura Munson | Mar 2, 2021 | Musings, The Writing Life
The Paperback Release of Willa’s Grove is TODAY!
My March Virtual Book Tour info is below… Join me “on the road!”
A year ago today in NYC on pub day!
An Ode to Migration:
Every year in early March, just when I start seriously considering moving to Mexico or Arizona or the Bahamas or Belize or…just anywhere that’s not Montana every-day-grey and encrusted…a sound emerges. And promises that the snow will melt and the birds will be back and the forest floor will bloom. It is the sound of the red-winged blackbird.
Every year I hear it and worry for it. “Oh no! It’s too soon! There is still so much impossible weather to come. The marsh is still frozen. There’s nothing there for you to make your nest. You will shiver and freeze in the trees. Come back in a month. Please!”
But every year, the red-winged blackbird holds court somewhere that I cannot see, scouting out my marsh for another season of nestlings and fledglings. Every year it chooses this place behind my house, as safe ground for its to-and-fro migration. This is the “to” part and for almost thirty years, it drops me to my knees. It has chosen this place and exactly this time of year. So who am I not to?
When the birds left last fall, after the way 2020 had behaved, I really wasn’t sure if they’d come back at all.
Could they sense that humanity was limping in a global pandemic? Did they want to get anywhere near our fear and our anger and our helplessness? And what about our warming planet? In 2020 style, would the climate crisis catapult and would they come back too early and find no food and die? I tried not to read articles like this one. But how could I not. The returning birds are how I know how to hope. And if I feel that way, then I’m sure much of the limping world feels that way. “Hope is the thing with feathers,” after all.
We need our birds. I’m sure it’s much more than humans which needs them. The whole eco-system needs them. But I’m not going to pretend to be a scientist. I just know that when birds fly through my world, I can believe in its goodness and its future. I wrote much of my novel, Willa’s Grove, on my screened porch by the marsh, listening to red-winged blackbirds, and so many others: ruby-crowned kinglets, nuthatches, western tanager, robin, chickadees, varied thrush, Swainson’s thrush, sora. But the red-winged blackbird is the “king of the rushes” until it’s time to migrate. It’s no surprise then that Willa’s Grove is full of migration. One editor thought there were “too many birds in the book.” So I wrote in more.
Birds, especially migrating birds, are what we need to not just hope, but to understand movement and unity. When they pass over us, they are stitching us to another place on the globe.
If we look up, we can catch the thread, as the poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes in her poem Kindness. And if we catch the thread, they thread us together. I truly believe that. Not the same with airplanes.
One year ago from today, I was revving up to be on a lot of airplanes, across the US, for two months. It was my publication day for Willa’s Grove. To celebrate, I sat in a New York City bistro eating bacalao, white bean cassoulet, and sipping on a glass of French rose. People were talking about this thing called Covid, but way over in China. And Italy. Not really in the US. I mean…a global pandemic? In the US? People had things to do and places to go and people to see and New York City was as forward moving as usual. I asked the waiter to take a photo of me. I look very happy in that photo. I finished lunch and went to the iconic Strand Bookstore, and lo…there was my novel. And my memoir too. I signed them and asked the bookstore clerk to take a photo of me. I look so happy in that one too. That night I did my first event. It was full of fans and friends and Haven Writing Retreat alums. I got to read from my book and see its messages coming alive. I got to sign books with personalized, loving words. I was in my element. I’d wanted to publish a novel for decades. It took me eight years and nineteen drafts to get Willa’s Grove where it needed to be. The picture from that night’s event is the happiest of all.
At that night’s event, I read a section about Willa finding a migrating dead snow goose on the banks of Freezeout Lake, with its heart cut out of it and placed on its white breast. About how Willa, a newly grieving widow, lies down next to it, and weeps, and falls asleep out of the emotional exhaustion that grief requires of its griever. And she falls asleep also out of surrender. That gutted heart is hers too. I hadn’t planned on reading that section, but for some reason, in that New York City packed venue, I felt the need to speak migration. And how we can sometimes lose our way, and even our lives. Never could I have imagined what was about to happen.
As Covid swept the US and the world and my book tour went virtual, I kept reading that excerpt. I wrote book club questions and included this one: Why do you think that there are so many birds in the book? People responded so differently than they did the night of the NYC event. It was like 2020 was the year they learned to look up. And maybe even catch the thread.
A year later, as my paperback version of Willa’s Grove makes its migration across the globe, I want to imagine it casting its own thread of hope.
Its messages are exactly what we need right now. That we need to come together. We need to tell our stories. We need to create the space to listen to each others’ stories. We need to talk and hear about dashed dreams and new ones. We need to be gentle with one another and to learn the lessons of the woods. And yes, birds.
Each morning I go out on my front porch, no matter the weather, and I stand there and say, “Thank you for this day. May I be _______ in it.” Sometimes the word “joyful” comes out. Sometimes “graceful.” Or “peaceful.” Or “grateful.” I’m never sure what word will emerge. But the word that comes out is the word I fasten to my day. The thread I catch. Words are that way too. They migrate.
This morning, as my book migrates in its new paperback form, when I went out to the front porch and said my morning words, something of a miracle happened. As I spoke “Thank you for this day. May I be…” the word that came out of my mouth was “hopeful.” And just as I said that word…guess what I heard? The first springtime call of the red-winged blackbird.
“Hope is the thing with feathers,” indeed.
I hope that you will catch the thread of the birds, the words, and the women of Willa’s Grove.
Yours,
Laura
“Dear Laura, I have been reading Willa’s Grove and it has been a hug in the form of a book. It has made me realize the large void in my life this last year. So thrilled that things are slowly moving ahead. Just wanted to say hello and thank you for your book. I am enjoying it so much.”
—Heidi Okada (a loving reader who reached out to me in this loving way. She has certainly caught the thread.)
My Virtual Spring Book Tour starts this Thursday
with the fantastic author advocate, podcaster, and author
Zibby Owens!
Click here for more info about our event.
I’d love to “see” you out there on the road! My March events are listed in my Events Calendar on my website here.
April events coming soon…
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I am thrilled to announce…
Haven Writing Retreats will resume this fall!
Click here for more info. After all we’ve been through…you KNOW you need this!
Email me to arrange a call and learn more: laura@lauramunson.com
- September 8 – 12, 2021
- September 15 – 19, 2021
- October 27 – 31, 2021
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